Utah January 17th, 7:30PM

I too feel that Flip's offense is overrated. Agree, too many times we come up with abysmal plays when we get into trouble. Outside of Rip or Chauncey with the three ball, we have no go-to game established when the team gets into trouble. So, we go into droughts. As we miss, watch how the defense lets down as the other team gets easy, quick buckets to boot.

Lee, I also saw that having Dice and Webber in the game at the same time was not good for defense. Right, we may not play them together. And, we need to give Webber some time. But the help defense needs to get better if we are to be a credible contender.

Well "Mr. Big Shot" played his first game in a couple of weeks (26 points, 7 asst) however, it wasn`t enough as the Pistons fell to the Jazz 100-99.​

The first Q started slow for both teams as the first points for Detroit came at the 8:15 mark off a J from Rip, asst CB. It was nice to see Billups gve Rip that pass right when and where Rip wants it. Rip and CB start to feel it as Rip is running Derek Fisher through picks like crazy. Fisher picks up two quick fouls. CB comes out the game with 4:23 remaining in the Q. Deron Williams then went on work on Flip Murray. It was literally a layup drill by Williams. If he wasn`t going to the hoop and finishing (31 points, 10 asst) Memo or Boozer was awaiting a pass from him no more than a few feet from the basket!​

End of quarter Utah 26 - Detroit 24.......​

Hunter, Fino, Rip, Dyess and Sheed start the 2nd Q. This group was very active on the defensive end, with Lindsey providing pressure on D and a couple of jumpers to begin the quarter. C-Webb enters the game at the 10:10 mark to a standing ovation. On his first touch as a Piston he tosses a perfect pass to Rip but he misses the layup! On another possession, Webber draws the defense to him and dishes to CB for a wide open look at a 3........ ....SWISH! A block shot from C-Webb also resulted in a 3 by Sheed, putting Detroit ahead 39-31. Utah then went to Deron Williams who orchestrated the pick n roll, pick n pop, give n go or whatever you want to call it to perfection. BTW, the Jazz did outscore the Pistons 58-36 in the paint. Towards the end the quarter CB makes a bonehead mistake and fouls Williams shooting a 3, he makes two out of the three.​

The half ends Detroit up 51-46..........​

As the 3rd Q begins CB goes right at Deron Williams and draws two fouls on him in 11 seconds! Why didn`t he keep that up is beyond me. Sheed then goes to work, scoring 6 straight points and playing good defense on Carlos Boozer. After a goaltending call on one of Tay`s vintage blocks on a Williams layup, the Jazz seemed to wake up. A slam attempt by Sheed slipped out of his hands, resulting in 2 made FT by Derek Fisher. The Pistons, then all affirmed their membership to their favorite club - "Jumpers Only" for the next few possesions, as the Jazz continued to be escorted down the lane to the hoop by said memebers of this club. The newest member (C-Webb) was welcomed with open arms as he seemed to know the protocol very well.​

Quarter ended Utah up 72-70..........​

Detroit`s play was a bit sloppy to start the 4th Q, shooting airballs and committing turns. The Jazz atatcked the rim and got several second chances (13 ofensive rebounds). When they were not attacking the rim Memo was knocking down jumper after jumper. At the 5:00 mark Sheed picks up his 5th foul and a tech. A hoop and FT by Tay brings the Pistons within four points, 86-82. The game is getting very physical as Rip picks up his 5th foul with 4:13 left in the game. Twenty-seven seconds later Rip fouls out with only 10 points (5-15 FG). The Pistons begin to attack the basket getting good results. The Pistons defense is still nonexistent on pick n rolls and the Jazz take full advantage of it as AK-47 virtually rolls to the basket without a Piston within 5 feet of him, 97-94 Utah. After two FT by CB make it 97-96 1:08 left. Williams hits a 3 followed by a 3 by CB. The Pistons got one final chance to win it with 5.5 seconds left, Billups jumper is off, GAME OVER!!!!! ​

Tim Duncan, Bruce Bowen, and Fabricio Oberto aren't exactly athletic specimens either, and somehow the Spurs have managed to play effective team defense under Gregg Popovich. The Rockets... Shane Battier, Yao Ming, and Dikembe Mutombo covering Rafer Alston and Tracy McGrady, but Jeff Van Gundy can make them play defense. The Jazz have the slowest front line in the league, and Deron Williams is Chauncey's clone physically, but Sloan demands execution of their defensive scheme. The Suns have quickness but are nonetheless as physically overmatched as any team in the game, but D'Antoni gets them to rotate. New Jersey is a terrific defensive team with no great defenders but Richard Jefferson and the plodder, Jason Collins, and absolutely no shotblocking. Scott Skiles coached the best defense in the East last season, anchored by Kirk Hinrich, who nobody calls particularly fast. Mike Brown has a very good defensive team in Cleveland despite having the following good defensive players: Eric Snow, Ira "DNP" Newble; and a number of genuinely bad defensive players to be made up for. Brian Hill coaches the #4 defense in the league with Jameer Nelson, Grant Hill, and Hedo Turkoglu starting on the perimeter.

The Pistons may not be the Atlanta Hawks, but they have plenty of players who are fully capable of playing good man-to-man defense, and most of their players have enough understanding of the game to be excellent help defenders if they are disciplined enough to make the effort.

Well as much as we can analyze what happened, the men on the court play the game, and tonight we played well, except on one thing. Perimeter defense.

See, quick guards and penetrating our shakey outside D, and due to slow help defense on pick and rolls, and in general lack of an "anchor" in the middle, those guards can either shoot over, drive to the basket, or pass the guy left open from the help defense from our bigs.

Example, Williams does a pick and roll, Billups lets him penetrate, Williams bounces it to AK47, AK47 feeds the post for a dunk due to the defensive breakdown.

How do we change this? We need to get back to tought man to man D. If Webber can'tmove quick, we need to make him the anchor. Same when Davis is in the game.

On offense, we did OK. Sheed should post up more often, but if our shots dont fall, they dont fall. We can't expect Tayshaun and Sheed to give us 25 points a game in the paint, they did OK tonight. Chauncey shot well, surprisingly well for coming off an injury. Webber looked a little lost, give it time. Basically, our offense will get there.

Our defense, well to be honest, unless we get that lockdown outside defender we will never be able to make up for the loss of Ben. Ben isnt superman, I agree with Roscoe, but he DID force people to alter shots and made the paint a no-no zone. We don't have that anymore.

Overall, a heart ripping loss, but a loss I can live with the more I think about it. The Jazz are one of the better coached teams in the league, and it showed tonight.

And on Flip. Sure, Flip isn't a great coach. But I will be honest with you, these guys aren't stupid. They know, or should know how to motivate themselves. Flip needs a stern talking to, but you shouldnt need a coach to tell you protect the 3 point line in a tight game, or to shut up in a close game when the refs are prone to give you techs.

i've seen more losses at the palace in 4 months than i did all last year, including the playoffs. pistons 8 losses at home, only 4 losses at home all of last year. the jazz have our number.

webber will be fine. it's a breath of fresh air with his passing ability, because our guys actually move on offense and look for a cut. might work with webber getting maxiell some nice feeds. he also drew a lot of attention that got other guys dunks like mcdyess.

kevin wilson, the pistons assistant coach, said they have to and *will* get maxiell back into the rotation, and also said he thought they could've used him tonight.

when flip murray entered the game i turned to my friend and said in announcer voice, "and there goes deron williams, blowing by murray for another uncontested layup!!" and this happened on about 4-5 straight possessions. we were keeping him and his confidence in check until then.

i'm curious about the jazz's big run after being down 61-48, and how closely that is related to dale davis leaving the game. he needed to be in more to defend the paint.

radio talking about being annoyed with our own players running the pick and roll and guys setting great picks, but instead of our guards looking toward them cutting to the basket, they swing it around the perimeter.

thought we got shafted on several calls, but seemed to get a few makeups at the end. chauncey played a phenomenal game. looks like nazr is on his way out.

webber got a standing ovation his first time being called into the game, but the palace was relatively quiet. there were some more fans there before tipoff, but it still wasn't close to a sellout, and several times during the game you could hear a pin drop. basically the fans went from bored, to frustrated (during the 61-48 run), to pissed off (at the lame calls the jazz were getting late in the game), to playoff-level excited (standing up and yelling for the last minute of the game). when what's-his-name got the open 3 to put the jazz up 100-96, everyone was yelling "NOOOOO!!!!" as he shot it, which unfortunately brought back memories of the palace when horry hit that 3 in game 5 of the finals.

we all thought chauncey was going to make his shot. he didn't. boo. :(

Ok I got back home after my Denver trip after the game so I had to watch the tape.....I avoided turning on my computer because I wanted to be pleasantly surprised.....

Pistons start off cold> shooting all jumpers as if Mutumbo and Yao and Russell are in the standing in middle. Jazz throw a few away and allow us to jump to a 17-9 lead. I say ummm, we might be back as Rip and CB get all the points...shades of the 2004 best-back-backcourt in the league...The only problem is they cool off and the rest of the starters ars still throwing up bricks and the Jazz close quarter on a 17-7 run.

Pistons break out in the second qtr with a big 17-5 run to take a 10 pt lead with CWebb in making his debut with some nice passing. (Boxscore says he finished with 3 assists, but he should have had at least 6 if his teamates hadn't missed 3 ezy gimmes. ) Anyway Pistons almost give the lead back as they struggle midway thru the quarter but still finish the half with a 5 point lead.

Pistons open the 3rd qtr on 10-2 run and take what I thought was a commanding 13 point lead. At that point I decided to speed thru the DVR only to find the lead cut to 63-60 before Boozer gets a bucket and one scoring opportunity to tie the game. Someboby can correct me, but I think he missed the FT, but the Jazz got the rebound and scored to go ahead. (16-2 run by the Jazz)

That my friends was one the stories of the game. Too many scoring runs given up by a team that used to be in the top five in defense before Flip showed up. The Jazz got to many second chance points from those offensive rebounds and the Pistons allowed 58 points in the paint. I missed most of the Jazz mid third qtr run that got them back in the game, but once they went ahead, we came down and contined to fire up jumpers as Dlev indicated, so no wonder we lost the game. Wasted opportunites because our guys love the jumpers.

Deron Williams put on a layup drill clinic on how to use the baseline and backboard to score, but none of our guys decided to try that EZY method of scoring until it was too late. Yeah Tay kept it close in crunch time by taking it straight to the hole, but why didn't they try this earlier when they struggling in the third. Boozer got his 5th foul in the first couple of minutes of the 4th, but the coaches didn't force the action to get him out of the game and I believe he got 4 pts, 3 boards and couple of assists down the stretch..and was a great decoy....meanwhile Rip fouled out.

Even though we were able to finally score in the last 2 mins, thanks to Hunter and Tay, we still were leaving guys open as Williams got a wide open 3, Boozer was left open under the basket for a wide open dunk, and Ak47 was able to run by Dice along the baseline for a easy layup.

Would have been nice for CB to hit the winning jumper to atone for the 1pt loss to Jazz earlier in the season, but Flips' Pistons don't win those games... Also seems like that FT made after the technical foul on Sheed was the difference in the game. Maybe we should have kept memo instead..

I'm just happy to see Nazy or lazy in the Middle with no heart, on the way out. He has to be the weakest Center in the league...but Chris Webber...come on..this has to stop, we need players who are willing to go to the hole and stop all this jump shot crap. Thats why we are losing all these games, and what is going on with Max? He needs to be at least the 6th or 7th man coming off the bench. Webber is going to be a curse for the Pistons...mark my words on that.

Lost 8 of last 11 games, what a magic so devastated can take identity away from the team in just 2 seasons. If it ain't the coach it must be players' age, I only saw things like this happened to some old men like me, you know, I got my mojo eroded away in a span, say, 2 years. :Cry:

Kinda interesting. Lots of folks are pointing out (not just lee) that Flip Murray was torched at the end of the first Q. I'm reading it in all the papers.

But going back and reading through the play-by-play (without the benefit of reviewing tape at this time), Murray did manage to make 2 Assists in 4 minutes 17 seconds. He also did this during a 17-7 Utah run.

And, Deron Williams "torched" Murray for 8 points and 1 assist, but really only made 3 baskets because he got 2 +1s from Flip and Dice.

I think too much is being made of Murray getting torched. Everyone knows he is a rhythm player who is better starting.

Kinda interesting. Lots of folks are pointing out (not just lee) that Flip Murray was torched at the end of the first Q. I'm reading it in all the papers.

But going back and reading through the play-by-play (without the benefit of reviewing tape at this time), Murray did manage to make 2 Assists in 4 minutes 17 seconds. He also did this during a 17-7 Utah run.

And, Deron Williams "torched" Murray for 8 points and 1 assist, but really only made 3 baskets because he got 2 +1s from Flip and Dice.

I think too much is being made of Murray getting torched. Everyone knows he is a rhythm player who is better starting.

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Deron Williams torched every Piston that covered him. The problem was that some of those points came because no one was covering him. Case in point the winning three point basket.